


Memories Rekindled

by jeeno2



Series: Rebelcaptain Stories [2]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Kissing, Sharing a Bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-28
Updated: 2016-12-28
Packaged: 2018-09-12 18:38:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,299
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9084859
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jeeno2/pseuds/jeeno2
Summary: It helps, somehow, this joint process of remembering where they've been and what they've lost.  Even if they can only bear it in fits and starts.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Written for a tumblr prompt: "gentle kiss." I'm considering writing a part 2 for this ficlet eventually.

Jyn is working on the journal again, in the ship’s tiny galley kitchen, when Cassian returns from patrol.

They’ve been creating a sort of memory book together ever since Scarif.  Bodhi thought it might help them. They don’t work on it every day, of course. They don’t have that sort of time, and besides, neither of them thinks they’d be able to handle dwelling that long among ghosts. But it helps, somehow, this joint process of remembering where they've been and what they've lost. Even if they can only bear it in fits and starts.

Cassian sets down his pulse rifle by the door and crosses over to where she sits at the table, shoulders hunched, jaw clenched tight, pen gripped so tightly in her fist it’s as though squeezing it is the only thing keeping her tethered to this earth.

He’s seen her get like this before.  He closes his eyes and sighs.  "Jyn,“ he says, carefully, tentatively, lightly touching her arm.

She snaps her head towards him, then, pupils blown wide.  Cassian frowns.  She’s clearly in the throes of another horrible memory.  She stares at him for a long moment, breath coming unnaturally hard.

“Jyn,” he says again, voice filled with all the tender emotions he still does not know how to put into words.

Slowly – very slowly – Jyn’s breathing slows as she gradually returns to the present. “Cassian,” she says.  She sounds apologetic. Cassian wonders if she is only just now realizing he’s here.

  
Only then, when Cassian is confident that the worst of the flashback is behind her, does he risk a glance at the page Jyn was working on when he interrupted her.  And suddenly, the scene he walked in on makes perfect sense.

It’s a drawing of three people – a man, a woman, and a small girl.  The picture is crude, but all three figures have the same turbulent, stormy eyes and Jyn’s short, plain brown hair.  

He swallows thickly as realization dawns.

Jyn’s drawn her family.

 

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

  
  
They don’t speak again for several hours.

After dinner is over, and the others have all left to attend their evening tasks, Cassian finally works up the courage to ask.

“Tell me about them?” he prods gently, pushing around the same single bite of mashed potato in circles around his plate with his fork.

Because he doesn’t know anything about her family. Not really. Nothing beyond the barest, basic details they were briefed on when they picked her up a month ago.  Cassian thinks fleetingly of his dead brother, and how important he was – is – to him. His heart clenches painfully in his chest at the memory.

But to Cassian’s disappointment Jyn doesn’t respond.  She only closes her eyes and abruptly gets up from the table before leaving the room without another word.

 

oOoOoOoOoOoOoOo

  
  
Much later, as they lie together in her narrow bunk – the way they’ve done every night since leaving Scarif – Jyn curls up against him in the way that is at once both brand new and wonderfully, achingly familiar.

Cassian has just started smoothing back the front fringe of her hair in the way he’s discovered she likes when she speaks at last, her voice barely above a whisper.

“My father was a bit of a practical joker,” she begins, closing her eyes.  Cassian stops moving his hand without meaning to, surprised in spite of himself at Jyn’s decision to share this with him.

She opens her eyes and glares at him.  He takes it as an unspoken request to keep stroking her hair. She doesn’t have to ask him twice.

“I suppose with a life like ours one of us had to be,” she continues. She gives a small, mirthless laugh. “He just… always seemed to know when Mother or I needed cheering up.”  She pauses. “He was good at it.”

Suddenly, Cassian needs to let her know, again, that her father is real to him, too. Even though he never really knew him. “He was brilliant,” he says.  She already knows that, of course; but Cassian knows she needs to hear him say it. “So, so brilliant, Jyn.”

She chuckles again. He can see a blush rising on her cheeks even though the bunk room is very dark. “Yeah. Well. He was more than just brilliant.”  She pauses. “He was my father.”

She turns a little so that she’s lying face-to-face with Cassian, less than an inch of electrified space all that’s separating them.  Slowly, tentatively, she reaches out to caress his cheek. This is new to them too, this gesture, but he closes his eyes and tries to lose himself in the feeling as he leans into her touch.  

“I think you’re brilliant too, Cassian,” she says on a whisper.

His eyes fly open.  She said the words so quietly he almost thinks he imagined the admission.  But her blush has deepened, and she’s giving him a sheepish smile as she continues to stroke his cheek.

He must have heard her correctly, then.

If Jyn notices his surprise she doesn’t acknowledge it.  She looks away and clears her throat before continuing.  "My mother and I didn’t have as much in common,” she muses wistfully. “I didn’t know her as well as I knew my father.  But she loved me, I think.“ She closes her eyes. “They both did.”

Cassian gently brushes his fingertips along her hairline again.  He hopes the gesture soothes her, the way her strong arms around him in the night sooth him when he has nightmares. He knows how painful this must be for her – not just talking about her parents, but also the process of sifting through old, false memories that have been tinted rose-colored over time and separating them out from what is real.

And then, to Cassian’s shock, and with no warning, Jyn begins to cry.  Her body convulses with huge, body-wracking sobs that shake the whole bed.  Never – not during her interrogation at the hands of the Rebel Alliance; not on Scarif when they were running for their lives – has Cassian seen her broken into pieces like this.

He doesn’t know if he has the right – all of this is so very new to them both – but before he can talk himself out of doing it he gives in to the sudden urge to wrap himself around Jyn’s small body as tightly as he can.  To his immense relief, she lets him gather her up.  She sobs silently into the front of his thin cotton shirt for a very long time, this brave, fearless girl, soaking him through to the skin with her tears.  She moans incoherently as Cassian _shh_ ’s her and says all the reassuring things that he can think of, in the moment, to say.

After what feels like hours Jyn eventually returns to herself. But neither of them move. He remains wrapped around her like a protective cocoon, her face still pressed tightly into the top of his ribcage.

“Can I tell you about my family tomorrow?” he asks her eventually, his voice shaky, weak.  He thinks it might help him.  He knows it will hurt terribly.

She nods against his chest. “Yeah,” she says, sniffling a little. She rubs at her nose with the back of her hand.  “I’d like that.”

He looks down at her – so devoted; so fierce; so strong – and before he can talk himself out of doing it he presses a sweet, gentle kiss to the top of her head.  To the tip of her nose.  

She looks up at him and, always one to take the lead, she kisses him, tenderly, on the lips.

They fall asleep like that, wrapped tightly in each other’s embrace. And for the first time in what might be years, Cassian’s nightmares are kept entirely at bay.


End file.
